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Dorothy Beecher Baker (December 21, 1898 - January 10, 1954) was a member of the group termed the Hands of the Cause of God who were a select group of Bahá'ís, appointed for life, whose main function was to propagate and protect the Bahá'í Faith. Unlike the members of the elected institutions and other appointed institutions in the Bahá'í Faith, who serve in those offices, Hands are considered to have achieved a distinguished rank in service to the religion. Baker was among those in the first contingent, appointed 24 December 1951 by Shoghi Effendi, then head of the religion. Baker was distantly related to Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. ==Before being named a Hand of the Cause== At the age of 13 years, her grandmother, a Bahá'í, took her to New York to see 'Abdu’l-Bahá who was then on an extended trip to the West. About on her 15th birthday she took official steps to be recognized as a Bahá'í. She went to college at New Jersey State Normal School at Montclair where she graduated in 1918 as a teacher and was employed by the Newark school system. In June 1921 she married Frank Baker who had two children and in 1922 she had an additional daughter and a son in 1923. In 1926 she was first elected to the Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly of Buffalo NY where they then lived. The family moved to Lima, Ohio in 1927 and in 1928 she was a delegate to the national convention following which she dedicated herself more to the service of the religion. She was first elected to the National Spiritual Assembly in 1937. Baker participated in leadership roles in several initiatives of the Bahá'ís before World War II. Among the two highest priority were undertaking `Abdu'l-Bahá's call through the Tablets of the Divine Plan to spread the religion throughout Latin and South America and addressing racism in America. Baker was named chair of the Inter-America Committee of the Bahá'í National Spiritual Assembly of the US, responsible for many aspects of an initiative of the religion to spread the religion into Latin and South America and in 1939 she was also appointed by the national assembly to the Race Unity Committee along with Louis George Gregory〔 which she chaired from 1941–44 when she also served on the Bahá'í National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada on which she ultimately served sixteen years. The committee stressed the role of education and culture, gave parents recommendations for educating their children in the spirit of racial equality, and encouraged the study of African American culture. Baker was instrumental, for example, in establishing the College Speakers Bureau for the committee on Race Unity. In 1941-2 she visited 30 colleges - in 1942-3 she visited 50 more. Across four years, through this bureau's work, she spoke to more than 60,000 students in 20 states.〔 From 1937 to 1946 Baker made six trips through Central and South America. Because of her background in speaking to many audiences Baker was regarded as one of the best Bahá’í speakers in the United States. Baker's daughter, Louise Baker, pioneered to Colombia in earlier 1943. In later in 1943 Dorothy spent a month in Colombia visiting the Bahá'ís and her daughter. Later in 1945 and again early 1947 Baker was one of a number of notable Bahá'ís who traveled through Mexico.〔 Starting in 1946, following World War II, Shoghi Effendi drew up plans for the American (US and Canada) Bahá'í community to send pioneers to Europe. Delaying her personal Bahá'í pilgrimage, Baker undertook a trip from 1948 across Europe including visiting Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal (where she again visited her daughter.)〔〔 See . Baker was a representative of the US National Assembly to 1951 convention to elect the regional assembly to oversee the religion across Mexico through Latin America to Panama and the West Indees. During a second trip through Europe and the second in 1951 Baker was appointed as a Hand of the Cause.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dorothy Beecher Baker」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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